(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newman)
GK: Shopping for a Christmas gift for your kids? Here's an action figure that'll keep em engrossed and occupied for hours. It's Walt the Writer. A realistic figure, anxious, middle-aged, in a gray sweater and blue jeans, Walt the Writer performs many authentic actions, such as pacing the floor (DOLL WALKING):
TR (SMALL VOICE): I'll never finish this in time--..I need the money desperately--.Why don't I write best-sellers like John Grisham? I write better than he does. What's wrong with me?
GK: And answering the phone (RING) and lying to editors.
TR (SMALL VOICE): It's coming along great, Mr. Wacker. I'm really excited about it.
GK: Sitting at his desktop computer and writing (CLICKING) and having terrible computer problems.
TR (SMALL VOICE): It froze up again! And I forgot to back it up! All my hard work---- lost! Oh my goodness!
GK: And Walt the Writer drinks like a fish. (POURING)
TR (SMALL VOICE): A little bourbon to steady my nerves and I'll get right back to work.
GK: And he loses his wife and family and his house and car and becomes a homeless person.
TR (SMALL VOICE): Spare change--..got fifty cents?--..help a guy get a laptop?----
GK: And he goes on the wagon and writes the story of his life and he goes on Oprah ----
TR (SMALL VOICE): I was destroying myself because I didn't know how to love myself, Oprah, and now I've allowed myself to do what I need to do for me.
GK: It's Walt the Writer. With his good friend, Pat the Poet.
SS (DOLL): The water ripples rapidly over black rocks,
The woods are dark and beautiful,
Why do I feel so confused and empty?
And where is my purse?
GK: And Mamie the Memoirist.
SS (DOLL, DEEPER): The first snowfall of December always takes me back to Prague and the Christmas of 1973 after I fell in love with Joseph and followed him to Kafka's city, the city of chocolate and cigarettes and clocks and cathedral bells.
GK: And Corey the Choreographer.
TR (DOLL): (TO MUSIC) And one---- (RUNNING FOOTSTEPS) and two----- (SPIN) ---- and three----- (LEAP) and four (RUNNING FOOTSTEPS)-----
GK: And Peter the Painter.
(SQUIRTS OF PAINT, FLUNG, AND DRIPPED AND DAUBED)
GK: And Scott the Sculptor.
(BLOWTORCH)
GK: Action Figures of Artists----..yours for Christmas, from A.F.A.
© Garrison Keillor 2002